Many must have missed a small news item that appeared in the media last week, mentioning how Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde visited New Delhi to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah but had to return despite waiting for a full day without that meeting. This must be one of the rarest of rare occasions when Shinde travelled all the way to New Delhi but was denied a meeting with the BJP top brass. Obviously, something is not right, and perhaps some political equations are changing within the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra.

Whenever there is a coalition government in power, either in the state or at the Centre, there is media speculation about how the relationship between the coalition partners changes over time. The players always pretend that everything is alright and all is well; however, experienced observers can figure out how the relations keep changing all the time, and sometimes they reach a boiling point.

MLC seat-sharing sparks tensions

What we see happening in Maharashtra right now is related to the election to 17 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. The gist is that Shinde wanted a quota of at least seven to eight out of the 17 seats, but it was reduced to four seats in the seat distribution for the MLC polls within the Mahayuti alliance.

Abdul Sattar, a prominent leader from the Marathwada region of Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, publicly made a statement claiming that "the BJP was........

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